Theme and Variation
by L.C1
Summary: One possible future for Draco, and the letters sent thence. Intimations of slash


Title: Theme and Variation  
Author: L.C.  
Rating: R.  
Archive: Ouais, just tell me.  
Disclaimer: Not mine, I wish he was, I bow before JKR's feet for she is Goddess. Don't hurt me.  
Summary: One possible future for Draco, and the letters sent thence.  
Notes: Short. Dark. It might be a prose poem, I'm not sure. Intimations of slash.  
  
__Theme and Variation__  
  
To gut a man, whisper certain latin words, precisely conjugated, and stand several feet away. The abdomen opens with a sound like ripping thread--a sound that can only be heard if one has silenced the victim beforehand. Once the wound is there, gravity will finish the job. One must remember to stand back, though. Blood is quick, and if one were to get dirty--well, why even bother with magic?  
  
There are faster ways to kill someone, but few more beautiful. The body hollowed is a silent shriek, arching frantically towards its lost entrails. The heart remains, clutched tight within the ribcage, so that if one is clever enough to murmur more latin and watch the scar tissue creep, thick and ropy, across the pallid skin, the dead will live for a long time yet. I have seen men last for hours.  
  
I have held a man's liver before his shock-glazed eyes, feeling bile seep between my fingers. The meat was warm in my hand. This is what I remember. He died soon after. When I wiped his clotted blood on his cheek, the skin was cold.  
  
These arts are easy to learn. I wake with spells behind my lips.  
  
***  
  
We knew that there would be a war. We twined our limbs and I kissed your sweat and we knew it would end this way:   
  
Me straightening my hair, clipping my nails, marching smartly off to the general's tent. You with no words--and how strange that had been. Both of us are talkers, we spiral endlessly around our cores like twin stars, never touching center for all the plumes of words we spend. But when I left you, you had nothing.  
  
These days my hands are clean. I haven't touched blood in months. If you were here my fingers would be as you remembered them: long and thin, like bird bones. Maybe a touch more skeletal, a millimeter longer. Slide your hands over my body, then, whisper what you love into the hollows. Listen: the cartilage is becoming bone. Listen to me.  
  
I have words. I have words for you as I never did. Bone is precious. Listen to me. Never sleep.  
  
I could have talked for hours.  
  
***  
  
  
This is how it goes.  
  
Did your parents ever sing to you, Harry? I don't expect you'd remember if they did. Nursery rhymes, meaningless gibberish about cats and chickens and crooked men. I always liked that last one. I expect you'd find that ironic. But I did, the horseback sway of the words, the folds of my mother's dress pressing into my cheek as she sang. I would bury my face in her shoulders and when she pressed me to her breast I could feel the words humming inside her.   
  
That was back when she was still allowed to hold me. One day I asked her for a song and she pushed me away, snapping that I wasn't an infant any longer. Even at five I knew better than to cry where anyone could find me.  
  
The rhymes, though. They stuck with me. Old Abram Browne is dead and gone, you'll never see him more. There once was two cats of Kilkenny, each thought there were two cats too many. How many miles to Babylon? Three score miles and ten. Can I get there by candlelight?  
  
The *sound* of the words. Horse hooves and galloping, tidal waves pounding, like some desperate waltzing couple helpless to slow down. Did anyone ever tell you the story of the old witch who danced herself to death? One of my nurses was quite fond of that one. I don't remember much of it, fairy tales all blend together after you hear a few, but there's a prince and a princess and someone's to be married. None of it matters. Here is how it ends: The hag screaming, her eyes shot through with agony as her feet burst into flame. The lovers are long escaped but had they stayed they would hear the music, frantic violins and the insouciant tapping of the dancing boots, even as they turn to ashes. Then she dances on her knees, ragged stumps of legs, until the fire reaches her heart and she dies.  
  
The nurse stopped there, but I remember wondering-what happened to the musicians? Did they finally stop playing?  
  
Words in my head. There was a crooked man who walked a crooked mile he found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile he bought a crooked cat it caught a crooked mouse and they all lived together in a crooked little house is that where I'm going?  
  
One day I'll sing to you. I promise. I promise.  
  
This is how it goes:  
  
  
-- le fin --   
And no, I did not cut off the ending.  



End file.
